Ignore Hysteria Over New ‘Monsanto’ Bill

By Ramesh Ponnuru -
Apr 8, 2013

If you have read anything about the
“Monsanto Protection Act,” chances are what you have read is
wrong.

The provision in question was part of a wide-ranging bill
to keep the government funded that President Barack Obama signed
into law in late March. Its horrified opponents think the
legislation will furtively protect biotechnology companies, such
as Monsanto Co., from legal action if they produce genetically
modified organisms that have harmful side effects. They argue it
would make federal courts “powerless to stop Monsanto,” and
claim it was produced in a “hidden backroom deal” and “snuck”
into budget legislation. Oh, and it also “shreds the
Constitution.”

Actually, the law, which expires on Sept. 30, leaves both
courts and federal regulators free to pull products they find
dangerous. And the law’s real impact is modest. Let’s say that
the Agriculture Department, after a laborious process of review,
has allowed the sale and use of a genetically modified organism.
Let’s say that a court then finds, perhaps several years
afterward, that the department didn’t follow the proper process
in deciding to allow it. Under those conditions, the law says
farmers are still allowed to use the product, pending a final
determination.

Organic Farmers

In fact, we don’t need to imagine this scenario because it
happened in real life and led to the law’s enactment. In 2005,
the department approved a kind of alfalfa that was genetically
modified to resist a mild herbicide, thus enabling farmers to
avoid having to use harsher weed killers. Several environmental
groups sued to overturn the approval. They didn’t argue that the
product would cause any health hazards. Instead they claimed,
among other things, that it would hurt organic farmers -- that,
for example, farmers would lose the right to label their
unmodified alfalfa “organic” because it would be contaminated by
the new product.

Greg Conko, who studies biotech issues for the libertarian
Competitive Enterprise Institute, points out that this fear is
overblown, since organic standards require farmers to keep their
crops isolated from possible contaminants, and don’t penalize
unintentional cross-pollination.

In 2007, however, a federal judge ruled that the department
should have done a more thorough review and blocked new seeds
from being sold. Three years later, the Supreme Courtruled 7-
to-1 that the lower court had gotten it wrong.

In 2010, another judge made a similar ruling about
herbicide-resistant sugar beets, which at the time made up 95
percent of all sugar beets in the country. Two years later, the
department concluded that yes, it is all right to plant the
beets.

Keep in mind, again, that in these cases nobody has even
alleged that the crops pose any health risks and no court has
concluded that they harm the environment.

When they debated a farm bill last year, several
congressmen discussed the need to make it clear that, in these
cases, farmers are allowed to keep using products while the
department reviews its approval. Disagreements over other issues
kept any farm bill from passing. The biotech provision, though,
made it into the temporary government-funding bill that Obama
signed. (Full disclosure: My wife works for Senator Roy Blunt,
who reportedly helped get the provision inserted.)

The same activist groups that filed the lawsuits went into
overdrive blasting the new law. The issue took off, partly
because a lot of people find genetically modified crops
alarming, no matter what the evidence says about their safety.
And in a post-bailout world, legislation that looks like a favor
for particular companies receives heightened suspicion across
the political spectrum.

Different Light

Senator Barbara Mikulski, the Maryland Democrat who runs
the committee that had responsibility for the law, felt moved to
distance herself from it, saying it was on its way to passage
before she took charge. Fox Newsbacked up her story by noting
that Stonyfield Farm Inc., a subsidiary of Danone SA that makes
organic yogurt, had warned against the law before her tenure.

The involvement of Stonyfield -- and other organic-food
companies and their supporters -- casts a different light on the
entire controversy. It may be that these companies believe that
genetically modified crops really are a threat to the integrity
of their products. But they are surely a threat to their bottom
line.

In other words, on one side of this issue are companies
that would benefit if nuisance lawsuits pushed their
competitors’ products off the market. On the other side are
companies and farmers wanting to limit the impact of such a
tactic. I’ll leave it to you to decide which side has the better
case.